


Freedom Wings

by Myri



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Drinking, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Grisha Yeager's Bad Parenting, Hange spelled Hanji, Hanji being Hanji, Levi and Eren same age, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Punk!Eren, Punk!Levi, Reincarnation, Self-Harm, Shy!Eren, Slow Build, Triggers, Yeager spelled Jaeger, again kind of, kind of, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-23 22:35:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6132399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myri/pseuds/Myri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is a musician, artist, and literature buff. His clean vocals aren't as good as his unclean ones. One day, he decides to take a risk and join a band. Little did he realize that he'd start falling for his short band mate.</p><p>*I suck at summaries, sorry*</p><p>**Also, there is self harm, drinking, and possible drug use within this story as well as small panic attacks, if any of these bother you, read at your own risk**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin, only the ideas. Also all the song lyrics I will be using as ones that the band and Eren come up with are totally and completely owned by the band The Amity Affliction. I just love their music so I wanted to add it in. 
> 
> This is unedited, so there might be many mistakes and I apologize to that, I will one day get around to editing it.
> 
> There is self harm in this chapter, not until a little ways into it, but it is there, so you have been warned. 
> 
> A guide to the different fonts of the songs  
> BOLD - Eren screaming  
> BOLD & ITALICIZED W/ A ~ - The singing portions

Eren’s POV

 

**You can’t begin to know; The depths of the abyss**

**Until you’ve lost it all; Until you’ve seen yourself**

**Cause that reflection just; Ain’t what it used to be**

**It sure as hell ain’t what I want to see**

 

Eren is currently standing in the scalding water of the shower, doing only what he does best: screaming. Not the screaming you would typically think, but the kind that happens in those cool songs. He’s been learning for almost a year now and has even started coming up with his own lyrics. The only place he feels comfortable enough to do it though is behind locked doors where only himself and his best friend and roommate, Armin, can hear.

 

_**~Well I know that you’ve been searching** _

_**And you’ve looked inside your heart** _

_**But under oceans and in coffins** _

_**Is a better place to start** _

 

Eren’s singing voice is decent, but the screaming is definitely better. He really needs to find someone to sing the parts he’s written, but being too shy, hasn’t had the balls to ask anyone.

Eren continues to scream in the shower while he cleans himself before starting his day. He stays in there until the water runs cold. Eren grabs a towel after turning the shower head off and begins drying himself off. When he walks up to the mirror, he tries to ignore the scarring that covers his body. That is a story for another day. He begins to put in his piercings. Two lip rings, his septum ring, a barbell in his eyebrow, an industrial in his right ear, a tragus in his left, and two matching teardrop green and blue ¼ gauges that match his eyes. After securing his towel around his waist, he makes his trek down the cold hallway to his room. After rummaging through his closet for about 10 minutes, he’s finally found the perfect outfit. He throws on a pair of torn black skinny jeans, a white belt that has a chain on the right side, a dark gray v-neck t-shirt, his black leather jacket, and some combat boots with the buckles on them that come halfway up his calf. After quickly putting on some eyeliner under his eyes, he deems himself ready and heads to the kitchen where he can already smell breakfast and liquid energy being made.

 

“Good morning Eren, looking good today,” Armin said as Eren walked into the kitchen. Armin gave Eren a playful wink before turning back to the stove.

“Thanks Ar,” Eren grunted before walking over to the coffee pot that already had coffee brewed. Thank god for Armin, if he wasn’t such a good ‘housewife’ Eren would be late for classes everyday. He pours himself a cup in a large black mug then goes to sit at the little island that they had in the kitchen waiting for Armin to finish up with breakfast. Armin sets a plate filled with eggs and bacon in front of Eren and takes his own plate to sit next to him.

“By the way, you’re getting really good at the screaming, you should really start a band, Eren” Armin said after swallowing a bite of eggs.

“Eh, I don’t know anyone that can even remotely come close to playing an instrument besides horseface and I really don’t want to ask him, it wouldn’t end well. Besides, I don’t think I’m that good yet. Maybe if someone asks me, I’ll consider it, but I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon either.” Eren said with a mouthful of his breakfast. Armin grimaced, but he was already used to how bad Eren’s manners are. They finished breakfast in silence. After cleaning up their breakfast mess, Eren poured himself another cup of coffee. There was a loud knock on the door signalling the arrival of Mikasa, Eren’s adoptive sister.

“Ah, my ride is here, thanks for breakfast Ar. It was delicious, just like every morning. See you after classes and work! Have a great day” Eren yelled as he ran to the door. When he opened the door, there stood his raven haired sister, wearing the scarf that Eren gave her on her tenth birthday.

“Hey Mika, ready to go?”

“Yeah”

The two walked to Mikasa’s Dodge Challenger. How she found the money to buy that thing, Eren will never know, and he’s not sure he wants to know. The drive to Titan University was a silent one. The silences between Mikasa and Eren were never uncomfortable, they were actually quite nice for Eren. In the morning he wasn’t really up for having a lengthy conversation. They were too much effort. After parking, Mikasa and Eren went their separate ways. Mikasa was a sophomore studying biology to one day become a doctor, just like their father, Grisha, was. Eren was also a sophomore but he was studying music and art with a minor in literature. It was a hefty schedule and he was in classes for the majority of the day, but he didn’t care, he loved every minute of it. His first class of the day was one of his literature classes. So he started his trek to the literature building. The campus was big, but it was compact, making the buildings as close as possible. The student union was right in the middle of campus. Then the general education buildings formed a ring around that. On the outskirts of campus were the more specialized buildings. History and literature shared a building. The science building and math buildings were next to each other since those typically went hand-in-hand. Then finally were the art and music buildings. They were close to each other, which Eren was truly grateful for. The biggest walk he had to make was from the literature building to the art building, but he had an hour in between those two classes so he never had to rush.

 

Upon entering the literature room, he finds his friends Connie and Sasha already saving a seat for him in the second row. Luckily this was a more specific class and not one of the general literature classes so it wasn’t a huge lecture room. Eren hated the large lectures. He was so glad that he took a lot of college courses in high school so he really only had a few of those big lectures to attend his freshman year of college. All that was left for him were classes of about 20. He makes his way over to his friends and plops into a seat next to Sasha. He loved sitting next to Sasha because sometimes, on good days anyways, she would share her snacks with him. This typically only happened if Eren offered to buy her more, she sure was protective of her food. They quietly chatted amongst themselves until their professor started class. Class was only an hour long so it went by pretty fast.

“Hey, you guys wanna get lunch together today? I have about an hour and a half break at noon. We can go to Chik-fil-a or something in the SUB (student union building).” Eren asked both Connie and Sasha.

“Of course! I love food, I’ll definitely be there!!” Sasha responded with a hunger filled excitement in her eyes.

“If she’s there, then I will be too” Connie said with a chuckle and a loving expression on his face towards his girlfriend.

“Alright awesome! See you guys then, have fun with the rest of your classes.” Eren said over his shoulder on his way out of the room.

Time to head to art. One of his favorite classes, tied with music of course. Since being in one of the higher art classes this semester, it was kind of a no reign class. Obviously the professor would give a general topic of what the project had to be about, but after that, they could do whatever they would like. Today’s project was a fantasy theme. Eren was thrilled, he knew the perfect thing to paint. He always had these dreams, ones where there were giant people running around chasing smaller people and eating them. He never talked about his dreams to anyone besides Armin if one woke him up and he started having a panic attack. So today he would paint one of the scenes he dreamt about. The scene was towards the end of his dream and it looked a little something like this.

He was laying on the ground, but he wasn’t his normal size. He was the size of the giant man eating things. His body was smoking and he felt like he was about to pass out. He briefly remembers seeing a blur above him, taking out two remaining giants. He could see black, green, white, and blue. But before the blur spinning above him came into focus, Eren passed out.

He spent the majority of the two and a half hours finishing his painting. When he took a step back to look at his art in full, he was pretty pleased with himself. It turned out just how he wanted it to. After turning in his piece to the professor and cleaning up his work space and putting his supplies back into his locker, he decided to head to the little cafe on campus and grab a coffee before his music class. While waiting for his coffee to be ready, Eren begins to examine the board that had a whole bunch of advertisements posted on it. None of them seemed super important until one caught his eye.

**Wanted: Musician. One who can write lyrics. Preferably one that can**

**scream, but any will do. Call Hanji at 867-5309.**

There were little tabs that had the phone number on it that one can tear off and take with them. ‘What the hell’ Eren thought and ripped on off and put it in his wallet. The barista called out his name and he took his coffee and made his way to the music building. Eren could really play any instrument he would like to play. His top favorites, however, were the piano and the bass guitar. He never sang while playing the piano, he didn’t feel like his voice was good enough to accompany the beautiful music the piano put out. His music professor was helping him work on his singing though. She really was good at what she does. She’s even helped him almost perfect his screaming to where he won’t fuck up his vocal chords. For that, he was forever grateful. He isn’t quite sure what he would do if he could never scream again.

Music class went by just as fast as the literature class did and now it was time for Eren to go meet his friends for lunch. Eren puts in his headphones and begins blasting his favorite band, Parkway Drive, as he walks towards the SUB. When he walks in, he isn’t surprised to see that Connie and Sasha invited all of his friends to eat with them. He smiles as he walks towards his group that consists of Connie, Sasha, Jean, Marco, Mikasa, Armin, Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, Ymir, and Krista. A chorus of hey’s, hello’s, and ‘took you long enough, Jaeger’. The last one was no other than horseface, or Jean as others put it.

“Hey guys,” Eren responds as he sets his messenger bag down on the floor next to his seat, “I’m gonna go grab some food real fast, I’ll be right back.”

Eren makes his way up to the line at Chik-fil-a and after ordering a spicy chicken sandwich and some fries he heads back to the table. He sits down in between Armin and Mikasa and begins to inhale his lunch.

“Eren, if you eat like that you’re going to choke” Mikasa says with a worried look on her face. Mikasa always seems to be mothering Eren. It’s kind of suffocating for him. He just rolls his eyes at her and continues to scarf down his food. Lunch was filled with talking, laughter, and a lot of bantering back and forth between Jean and Eren. This was how it always was, and Eren loved every minute of it. For once in his life he was surrounded by people who cared about him, and it was a great feeling.

After lunch, Eren walked back towards the art building for his last class today, ceramics. Eren loved ceramics, he loved being able to be hands on and messy with something. Today they were making mugs. There were a few points that they had to hit, they had to have some additions to the piece (add clay to the outside to make it pop out), some takeaways (to dig out the clay so it’s set into the clay), and the handle of the mug couldn’t be a normal handle. Other than that, the theme could be anything. Eren decided to mix the two things he loved most, art and music. So the theme for his mug was music. The handle would be an eighth note, and then on either side of the handle would be a bass clef and a treble clef, these were his additions. For his takeaway he did musical staffs. On these music staffs, directly across from the handle, he added some music notes, another addition on the mug. He already began decided on what colors he would use. The inside of the mug will be black, as well as the handle, the bass and treble clefs, the notes, and the staffs. The rest of it would be white. They would be glazing the next class, which was on Wednesday, he was excited. He hoped that his mug would turn out great.

 

Eren was finally done for the day, well at least with his classes. He still had a 7 hour shift tonight at Pixis’. This store was similar to Hot Topic™ but about 100x better, in Eren’s opinion. They sold CD’s, a lot of anime merchandise, band t-shirts, jewelry for body piercings, and in the back of the store it was like a tattoo parlor and piercing place. Eren had been working here for quite a while now and has been promoted to manager and part time tattoo artist. He was also the main piercer at the store. He loved every moment he was in the store. The owner was Dot Pixis. Although he was drunk about half the time, he still managed to run a kick ass store. He was also the senior tattoo artist, but he only did by appointment, that way he made sure he wasn’t drunk during his sessions. Most of the tattoos they only did by appointment, unless someone came in with cash. Work was pretty slow for the most of the night for Eren. He mainly just stocked the store, did some cleaning, refolded shirts and reorganized the shelves. He had a few people come in for piercings and so he got some decent tips out of the deal. They closed shop at 10 o’clock tonight since it was so slow, so Eren managed to get out about an hour early since he did a lot of their closing duties during the work day. After locking the door behind him and his fellow employees, Eren walked to his and Armin’s apartment.

“Hey Eren” Armin greeted as Eren walked through the door, “there’s some dinner in the fridge for you if you’re hungry, just put it in the microwave for about 2 minutes, don’t forget to take the foil off this time. We don’t need you catching the microwave on fire….again” he finished with a chuckle.

Eren just flipped him off and walked into the kitchen to eat some dinner. While his dinner is heating up, Eren takes out his wallet to count the tips he made tonight. As he takes the wad of cash out of his wallet, a piece of paper falls out and lands on the floor. When he picks it up to look at it, he suddenly remembers what it was: the phone number for the person who is looking for another member for their band.

“Hey Ar, I need some advice. I saw this flier today in the cafe on campus that said they needed someone to join their band. The description of what they need fits me perfectly. I got the phone number, do you think I should call them? I’m kind of nervous, I’m not very good at performing in front of others.”

“I think you should go for it! You may not get another chance like this again you know? If you don’t take the risk, you might regret it one day.”

“Alright, I’ll call them tomorrow”

Eren gets his food and plops down on the couch next to Armin, who is watching one of his favorite animes, The Devil is a Part Timer! After watching a couple episodes, Eren decides it’s time to hit the sack. Eren cleans off his dinner plate and sluggishly makes his way to his room. He strips off his clothes and throws a large t-shirt on and crawls into bed, it doesn’t take him long before he falls into a restless sleep.

 

Only a few hours later and Eren wakes in a cold sweat with tears streaming down his face. He hasn’t had this dream in a while. In his dream he sees the cold, dead glare of his father as he’s spewing out profanities, calling Eren every name in the book, along with homophobic slurs. After his rant, he throws a fist toward Eren and it cracks him in the jaw. The force of the blow sends Eren into the wall where he slides to the ground. His father, however doesn’t stop there, he continues to kick Eren in the stomach, chest, back, and head. Eren tries to curl into a fetal position to protect his stomach and face, but sometimes it doesn’t work. Finally after running out of breath, Grisha Jaeger threw an empty bottle of whatever he had been drinking that night at the wall above Eren, causing it to shatter with such a force that some of the glass shards embedded into Eren’s soft flesh. Eren didn’t dare to cry out, otherwise it would start back up again. He just lay there as his father stomps through the house and into his room with a slam of the door. Typically at the slam of the door is where Eren wakes up. He wishes he’d wake up after the first punch is thrown, but no, his mind likes to make him relive those moments over and over again. Eren is about to go through a full blown panic attack, but before that can happen he reaches over to his nightstand and grabs the one thing he knows will help. He hasn’t done this in awhile, not since his last nightmare. But he slides the razor across his thigh as many times as it takes until his breathing is even once again. After he’s calmed down, he puts the blade away, grabs some bandages, covers his wounds up and falls into a dreamless state.

 

The next morning, Eren wakes to a slight burning on his leg, he doesn’t really mind the sting though. He’s thankful that he doesn’t have any classes today, only work at 4 pm. He sluggishly climbs out of bed and makes his way to the bathroom to shower. He grimaces a little as the scalding water burns his thigh, but he quickly gets used to it. He showers faster than normal today, no screaming either. As he gets out, he goes through his routine of putting his piercings back in and picking out an outfit. He settles on something simple. Dark gray skinny jeans, a white v-neck, a black jacket, and his maroon combat boots that go to his ankles. He throws on a black belt, some eyeliner, and a black beanie. Once satisfied with how he looks, he heads to the kitchen to see Armin making breakfast.

“Hey Eren” Armin says, not turning around to look at Eren.

“Hey Ar” Eren replies while heading over to the coffee pot to get some started. After the coffee is done brewing he pours himself a cup and heads over to the couch to watch some Netflix.

“Eren, are you going to call that person today? About joining the band?” Armin asks from the kitchen.

“Yeah, I guess so, might wait till a little later though.”

“Alright awesome, I have to get going to work, I’ll see you later though, have a good day” Armin says with a little wave before heading out the door.

 

At about noon, Eren decides it’s finally time to call the person. He punches in the number and it only rings once before a loud, overly excited voice comes on the other end.

“Hello! You’ve reached Hanji! May I ask who is calling me??” she practically screamed through the phone.

“ _Lower your voice shitty glasses, you’re too fucking loud_.” Eren could hear another voice over the phone, but it was a little harder to hear.

“Um, hi, I’m Eren Jaeger. I saw your flier in the cafe about needing a musician. I was just wondering if you were still needing someone.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren goes to his tryouts and meets his new bandmates. One he finds incredibly attractive.  
> Also just some background on our favorite characters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thanks for reading and the lovely comments I have received. This chapter has not been edited so there may be some mistakes, so I apologize now for that.

* * *

Levi POV

 

Levi is sitting in his apartment enjoying the silence with a hot cup of tea. Well, up until Hanji decides to barge in through the front door. Levi can’t really kick her out, since this is her apartment as well. He still has no idea why he ever agreed to live with this woman. She’s loud, messy, and incredibly annoying. Levi is just glad that she keeps the main rooms clean to his standards. She didn’t at first, but after a few punches to the gut, she finally came around. She’s rambling on about some biological shit that Levi couldn’t care about, so he just tunes her out. All of a sudden Hanji goes quiet, causing Levi to look up from the book he was reading. He sees her looking at her phone and then she answers the thing with the loudest fucking voice that only Hanji can make. “Hello! You’ve reached Hanji! May I ask who is calling me??”

“Lower your voice shitty glasses, you’re too fucking loud.” Levi tells her with a death glare that she just smiles at and keeps talking.

“Why of course darling, but we would definitely like to hear you first! There are a few others who have called so we need to pick from the best! When are you free?” Hanji is just about jumping with excitement at this point. She knew that this kid could have potential, just from his voice. Levi could only hear a slight mumbling from the phone, but couldn’t make out what the brat was saying.

“Yeah, we’re free today, what time works best for you?” she pauses, waiting for the person on the other end to respond. “2 o’clock? Yeah that works! Do you wanna meet in one of the music rooms on campus?” another pause “Okay sounds good, see you at 2, Eren.” Hanji ends the call and turns to look at Levi with the wildest look in her eyes.

“Get your sorry ass up and ready! We’re meeting a potential member of the band in an hour and a half. SO GO!” Hanji all but yells at Levi.

“Jesus fucking christ shitty glasses, calm the fuck down. Who ever said I was going?” Levi growled towards the crazed woman. “I did Mr. Grumpy pants, now go get ready, or I’m going to spill something sticky on the floor and not clean it up.”

With a sigh Levi heaved himself up off the couch. Sometimes he could never win against Hanji. She would make a low blow and clutch his nuts to where he had to agree to whatever the fuck she wanted. He heads into the bathroom to take a shower for the second time today. He doesn’t stay in as long as he wanted to, due to the whole time limit thing. After he gets out he adorns his face with all of his piercings. One in his lip, one on the side of his nose, his black 00g gauges, and piercings all up his cartilage. He already had the one in the bridge of his nose in and his tongue piercing. He adds some eyeliner under his eyes, not like he really needs it, it’s already pretty dark, but whatever, he doesn’t give a shit. He makes his way back to his room, ignoring the jumping woman in the living room. He quickly shuts his door and locks it, Hanji always seemed to enjoy opening the door whilst he was changing. He just throws on a pair of black skinny jeans, a black button up shirt, a red tie that he never fully made tight, and his black combat boots that went up to midcalf. After messing with his hair until it was perfect, he was satisfied with how he looked. He shoves his phone and wallet into his pockets and leaves his room to join Hanji in the living room. By now, they had about 30 minutes to go and meet up with Eren.

“Shitty glasses, lets get going or we’re gonna be late.”

“Coming my shorty!!”

Levi let out a small “tch” and an eye roll before opening the door and stepping out of the apartment. After locking the door behind himself and Hanji, the two made their way towards campus. When they arrived on campus, they still had about 15 minutes before they were supposed to meet up. So Levi and Hanji stopped in the little cafe and got some coffee. After they receive their coffees they head to the music building. As they’re walking up to the room they’re meeting in, they can hear someone playing the bass guitar. As they get closer they can already hear the low growling noise of someone doing unclean vocals.

“This must be the guy we’re meeting! I can’t wait to meet him!!” Hanji squealed.

“Shut up shitty glasses.”

Levi opened the door, and immediately the person went quiet.

“You must be Eren! Ah it’s so great to meet you in person!! You’re so cute!” Hanji yelled at the boy.

“Um...thanks I guess,” Eren replied with a slight blush to his cheeks.

Levi had to agree with Hanji on this one, not like he’d ever admit that out loud, ever. Eren was extremely attractive. He had brown hair, and green-blue eyes, just like the ocean. He also had a lot of piercings. Definitely Levi’s type.

“Oi, brat, do something to impress me or I’m leaving.” Levi told Eren.

“Oh, um, okay. I’ll do something that I wrote a while ago, it isn’t a complete piece, I have most of the lyrics written out, I just can’t really do clean vocals very well, I don’t like my clean voice as much as my unclean voice. Enjoy yourselves, I guess..” Eren rambled on.

 

**I felt the power of the bottles. Killed myself just to escape**

**I am my father's son. I am my father's mistakes**

**And I'm ashamed of myself. I just want out of this place**

**This fucking hell I've created. I can't seem to escape**

**I have to learn from myself. The fastest way to my death**

**So I could follow his footsteps. To my hospital bed**

 

Hanji looks like she’s about to piss herself with excitement once Eren finishes. “Oh my god! Eren! You’re perfect!” Hanji screams and Eren blushes. “Levi, can we keep him??? PLEEAASSEEE???”

“Shitty glasses, shut the fuck up.” Levi growls, “Oi, brat, you’re talented. You say you wrote those lyrics yourself?”

“Uh.. yeah, I did, I also kind of have a sound that should go with it. I’m majoring in music here so I can help with what the other instruments will play. I also need a clean vocalist to go with what I have. I play bass, so if you don’t already have someone who does that, I can do that too.” Eren says nervously while rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Calm down brat, don’t worry, you’re in. We do need a bassist. I’ll be clean vocals. Can’t really play any instruments so I’m stuck with that. Shitty glasses over here is our drummer. We have a guitarist, but he’s more interested in being our manager. You know anyone that can play?” Levi asks Eren.

“Um, I know one guy, he’s in my friend group, he’s kind of a shit head, but I tolerate him. He’s actually really good at the guitar, and he listens to this kind of music so he gets the sound. Would you like to meet him and hear what he can do? He’s actually probably on campus. I know he was wanting to join a band..”

“Yeah, get him here, we’ll listen to him.”

Eren steps out of the room to call whoever he thinks would work in this band. Levi, although it doesn’t seem like it, is really impressed with the kid and what he can do, and he’s also very excited to start working with the band, and not to mention the new cutie that just joined.

 

Eren POV

 

“Hey horse-Jean, I have great news. You know how you were wanting to join a band? Well, I just got offered a spot in one, and they really need a guitarist. So I was wondering if you’d like to come like audition. We’re currently in the music building room 201 if you’re on campus.” Eren speaks into his phone

“Uh yeah, I actually have a class in that building here in 30 minutes, so I’ll just stop by. Can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but thanks Jaeger.” Jean huffs out quickly.

“No problem. We’ll have to be on our best behavior though. Our friends can handle our bickering, but I don’t even really know these people or if they’d like two members constantly fighting with each other. So let’s just call a truce, at least when we’re around the other band members.”

“Deal. See you in about 5 minutes dude”  
“Yeah, okay”

Eren hangs up his phone and smiles to himself. This is really happening to him. He’s joining a band, the thing that only happened in his dreams. He can’t wait to start working on songs with his band and begin performing in front of an audience. With a huge smile on his face, Eren walks back into the room where Hanji and Levi are waiting patiently for him.

“Hey, my friend, his name is Jean, he said he’ll be here in about 5 minutes so you can hear him play.”

“Alright! Awesome!” Hanji says excitedly.

Levi looks bored and has begun messing around on his phone. Now that he isn’t nervous as hell, Eren has time to take a closer look at his new band mates. He observes Hanji first. She’s about the same height as Eren. She has crazy brown hair that’s pulled back into a pony tail and thick glasses. She seems extremely wild, but Eren believes he can tolerate her. He’s now observing Levi. Levi is quite a bit shorter than him with black hair that’s been cut into an undercut. He has gray eyes from what Eren can see from where he’s standing. ‘Holy shit he has a lot of piercings, but wait, so do I’ Eren thinks to himself.

“Take a picture, it lasts longer” Levi says without looking up from his phone.

Eren can feel his face is on fire, was he really staring for that long? “Oh um..sorry”

Levi just lets out a ‘tch’ and goes back to whatever he was doing on his phone. Eren is now looking down at his feet while rubbing the back of his neck. He hopes Jean would get here faster, this got really awkward for him. As if Jean had read his thoughts, he comes bursting through the door out of breath.

“Hey Eren, other people I don’t know. Shall we get this over with?” Jean breathes out.

“You must be Jean! I’m Hanji! Shorty over here is Levi.” Hanji exclaims in the way that Hanji does.

“Shut it, shitty glasses” Levi says in a monotone voice. “Okay Jean, do something to wow me.”

“I’m not sure you can be wowed, but I’ll try my damn hardest” Jean chuckles. “Sorry all I got today is my acoustic, I was completely unprepared for the last minute phone call, so it’ll have to do, I can play the electric though so it’s no biggie.”

He sets his guitar case down next to a stool and gets it out. Once he’s seated, he props his guitar on his knee and begins playing an acoustic version of Carrion by Parkway Drive.

“AH you’re in! I can’t wait to hear you play the electric!” Hanji squealed once Jean was done.

“Awesome, thank you so much, but I really need to get going, I have class in 10 minutes. Eren, shoot me a text with when we’re meeting up, or give them my number. See you around.” Jean says as he’s packing up his guitar.

After Jean leaves, the three that are left decide to meet up next Thursday to start practicing together. After Eren says goodbye to Hanji and Levi, he has about an hour until he has to go to work. He decides to stop and get something to eat and an energy drink since he slept like shit last night. He wasn’t really looking forward to work. Being around so many people when he felt like he’d snap at the drop of a hat, couldn’t be a good combination. But it was already too late for him to call off work. Being Tuesday, it shouldn’t be too busy, but no one ever knows. Eren walks into Pixis’ and makes his way back to the employee room to put his things away, grab his nametag, and take a deep breath before clocking in. Pixis was sober today so he must have an appointment. Eren has one today too, but not until 6 so he all he has to do today is stock the shelves and piercings, if anyone comes in for one. At around 5:30, Eren decides to start cleaning up his work station to prepare for his appointment. He also sketches out another take on the idea that his customer wants so they have another option to choose from.

“Hey, Pixis, can I set up an appointment with you? I want some more art done, I already have a rough sketch, I’ll finalize it here soon.” Eren calls over his shoulder at Pixis who is still working on his customer.

“Yeah, just pick any day and let me know.”

Eren was lucky he worked here, Pixis gave him a fat discount when it came to anything in the store, including his tattoos. That’s why he was able to get so many. He currently is working on a full sleeve that includes a lot of geeky things from his favorite anime, video games, and movies. His other arm has a cherry blossom tree on it with the petals falling from the branches. He got this one in memory of his mother, for cherry blossoms were her favorite. His next piece though, he had an idea that came to him in one of his dreams. It’s going on his back and it’s two wings overlapping one another. One is white the other is blue. He’s currently trying to get it to look just how he wants it to, but he’s having a hard time getting it perfect.

Eren had completed the sketch for his appointment and looked it over. It was a fairly simple tattoo, Pixis never gave him hard pieces, at least not yet since he was still learning. His customer wanted a cool looking moon, so what Eren came up with was a moon that was looking down at a lotus flower at the end of the crescent shape. There were some other little details in there as well to make it look less plain. Eren looked up from his sketch when he saw someone approaching the tattoo area.

“Hi, I have an appointment at 6 with Eren” the blonde haired girl said.

“Hey, you must be Petra, I’m Eren. First things first, can I make a copy of your driver’s license? Sorry but it’s mandatory.” Eren replies with a soft smile. After taking a photocopy of her license, Eren walks back to his station with the girl and has her sit on the table. “Alright, I took your idea and came up with a few different sketches. I can do any of them so you pick what you’d like. This is going on your shoulder blade correct?”

“Yeah. Hmm of all the ones you have I like this one” she says while pointing to the one that Eren had just come up with.

“Alright, awesome, just go ahead and lay down on the table with your shirt off, if you have a tank top on you can leave it on, just pull the strap down please. I’m gonna get things set up, but I’ll let you know when I’m ready to get started.” Eren replies while turning back to his supplies to get ready to start the tattoo.

The tattoo took about 2 hours to complete. Petra was thoroughly pleased with how it turned out, and after Eren walked her through how to take care of it, she left him a fat tip. Pixis let Eren leave after the tattoo was completed. For that he was grateful since he felt exhausted and had class early the next morning.

 

Levi POV

 

Levi enjoyed the rain that was now falling from the sky. He grabs his headphones and phone, his keys, and his pack of cigarettes and shoves them in his jacket pocket. He quietly slips out of his apartment so Hanji doesn’t interrupt his silence. He locks the door behind him and makes his way to the stairs that leads to the roof of the apartment complex. He takes the steps two at a time up 5 flights of stairs. He’s a little winded as he reaches the top, but he’ll blame that on his smoking habit. Before he opens the door he puts his headphones in and pushes play and then shoves his phone back in his pocket to protect it from the rain. Once on the roof he walks to his favorite spot, there’s a little overhang that protects him from the majority of the rain. He leans up against the wall and lights a cigarette. He closes his eyes as he takes a drag.

His mind wanders to the darkness that’s lurking in the back. He thinks of his mother and how kind of a woman she was. Then his mind turns onto his Uncle Kenny, his mother’s brother. He was a shit man that didn’t deserve the kindness of Levi’s mother. He was always stealing their money and eating their food. It was bearable for Levi, well, until he laid his hands on his mother. Levi had walked into their house after school one day to the scene of Kenny standing over his mother lying on the floor motionless. It only took Levi a minute to notice the red pool that was under his mother and how much paler she looked. He also noticed the knife in Kenny’s hand, glinting in the dim lighting of the kitchen. Kenny then turned on Levi. Levi was fast, but he wasn’t fast enough to get away from Kenny. He raised his fist and struck Levi across the face leaving him dazed. After a few more punches to the head, Levi was lying on the ground crying. At this point he could hear sirens, but he didn’t care, he wanted Kenny to finish his life. As if Kenny could hear his thoughts, there was a knife sinking it’s way into Levi’s stomach. A scream had escaped from Levi’s throat and before he blacked out from the pain, he remembers seeing his uncle being tackled to the ground. He woke up in the hospital with the worst pain he ever felt, and the pain he felt in his stomach and on his face. His mother was dead, and he wasn’t there to stop it.

Levi looked up into the night sky and at the rain pouring down from it. He felt a wetness on his face, and he knew it wasn’t from the rain. He rarely ever cries anymore, but he didn’t hold himself back tonight. So there he sits, alone on the roof of his apartment complex, cigarette forgotten. If anyone could see him right now, they would just see a slumped over figure with sobs racking his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH, tell me how I did, what I should do to make this story better. This is an ongoing work that I am still writing so if you have anything that you would like to see, just go ahead and comment what that is and I'll try and work it into the story!  
> Again, thanks sooo much for reading. Kudos, comments, and the likes are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Song used is My Father's Son by The Amity Affliction


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some heavy shit goes down. I'm terrible at summaries so just read to find out!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So terribly sorry about not updating sooner! I've been more focused on my new story, "Draw Me Something" since I'm more pleased with that one. But I'll try and update again soon.
> 
> Just a trigger/warning there is rape in this chapter, so just be warned. Sorry for not saying this the first time I posted this chapter, totally slipped my mind!

**Eren POV**

It has been a little over a week since Eren auditioned for the band. He is really looking forward to getting together with them tomorrow, Thursday, and starting on their music. He just has to get through today. Classes go by pretty fast for him today. He got his mug back that he glazed last week, and he’s really pleased with how it turned out. Other than his classes, all he has going on today was work at 5. It was a pretty simple day, no tests or anything to worry about, it was nice for Eren. While at lunch with his group of friends around noon there was surprisingly little bantering going on between Jean and Eren. They were too hyped up for tomorrow. Eren has even showed Jean the new song he has been working on, which made Jean even more excited. After his last class of the day, Eren has a couple of hours to kill before work so he decides to get something to eat and continue working on his new song. He almost has the bass part completed, for the tune of the song he composed it on the piano so he could play it for his bandmates and they could go from there. He was struggling a bit on the lyrics, he has an idea for where he wants to go with them, but he just can’t seem to get there.  _ Oh well, I’ll have help with it tomorrow _ , Eren thought. 

Work for Eren was slow tonight. There was only a handful of people that came in wanting a piercing. Eren only had about 30 minutes to go before they closed up shop and he can go home. He tries to get most of the closing duties done before they close up that way he doesn’t have to stay too long afterwards. Eren is mopping the floors of the store when he hears a loud  _ crash _ come from towards the front of the store. 

He runs towards the sound to see one of their shelves knocked over with the merchandise scattered all over the floor. Upon looking up from the mess, he sees two of the stores younger employees that got hired together a few weeks ago looking sheepish.

“What the fuck happened here?!” Eren yells at the two.

“Um, sorry sir, we were um...messing around and one of us got pushed into it and it fell over...we’ll clean it up right away.” One of them nervously replies.

Eren pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “No, just get the fuck out. I’ll clean it up. Go home, and pray to god you aren’t fired once Pixis learns about this. Some of this shit is broken.”

The two rush out of the store with the what looks like the fear of god in their eyes. Eren hopes they’re fired. He remembers having to train them and how obvious this was their first job. They didn’t seem to care about anything he was saying. All they did was talk to each other and gossip or make jokes about the customers that came in. Eren hates teenagers that think they know everything, they are the most frustrating thing to ever walk this earth. Because of them, he now has to stay at least an hour after closing cleaning up the mess and restocking the shelves.

Finally, after two hours of cleaning up the shelf that fell over and restocking it, Eren gets to leave the store. He was the only employee remaining since he sent the rest of them home for the night because the only thing that needed to be done was clean up the mess. Eren rises from the floor and stretches his back. It had been an incredibly long night for Eren. He goes into the employee only room to grab his stuff. 

After Eren locks the door to the store and begins his walk home, he feels a hand roughly placed over his mouth. He’s pulled backwards into a side alley next to his work. He would fight back, but his body and mind is beginning to shut down. He can feel hands roughly grabbing at him, feeling him everywhere.  _ Gods, just please let them find whatever they want from me and leave _ , Eren thinks to himself. Eren is jerked from his thoughts by a punch to the side of the head. This feels all too familiar to Eren, he’s been through this before. His father has done this to him countless of times before he left home. Eren can feel the panic attack coming on, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. Eren curls up in fetal position on the hard concrete of the alley hoping to make himself disappear so his attacker would leave. But the attacker had other plans in mind. Eren could faintly hear the sound of a belt being undone. He then feels his arms being pulled roughly behind him and bound by something rough. He feels hands working at his own belt and then places his belt in his mouth to prevent him from screaming, even though Eren probably couldn’t make a single sound. Tears begin to fall heavily from Eren’s eyes as the rough hands pull down his pants and boxers in one fluid motion. By now Eren is trembling and his body feels like lead, so even if he wanted to run away, he couldn’t. He can feel himself being entered by his attacker and strong hands wrapped around his throat so tight he could barely breathe. Just as Eren is about to pass out from oxygen deprivation, the hands are removed and he can feel a warmth running down his legs that wasn’t there before. The belt is removed from around his wrists and he can hear the attacker running off down the street. Eren can’t move, he just curls into fetal position once again and tries to calm himself down.  _ Why...why did this have to happen...what have I done to deserve this,  _ Eren screams inside his mind. Hot tears flow faster from his eyes onto the pavement below him. He hurts everywhere, his head where he got hit, his neck from being squeezed, and...he doesn’t even want to think anymore. Eren can’t seem to get his panic attack to stop on his own, so he starts to rapidly rub his wrist against the rough concrete. At one point, his wrist catches on something sharp and begins to bleed profusely. Eren couldn’t care less at this point, he kind of hopes he bleeds out. But the pain is enough to start to decrease the level of panic he feels. 

After about 20 minutes of laying curled up in the alley, Eren’s breathing is normal once again. He slowly picks himself up off the ground, wincing at the pain he feels everywhere. As he goes to pull up his pants, he sees his wrist still bleeding pretty fast. He just looks away and begins his short walk home. Luckily it’s late enough to where Armin won’t be up waiting for him to get home. 

Once Eren is back in his apartment and in his own bedroom, he falls to the floor in a heap. He reaches into his nightstand to grab the one thing in his life he’s been able to count on.

“Looks like I won’t be making it to my first band practice in the morning” Eren whispers to himself as he drags the blade down his wrist.

  
  


**Levi POV**

It’s about 6 o’clock in the morning when Levi decides to stop trying to get some sleep and start getting ready for the day. The band is meeting in about 2 hours anyway for an early band practice since this is about the only time they have today to get one in. Levi crawls from his warm cocoon and onto the cold hardwood floor. He stretches his arms above his head and then rubs his hands down his face. After he gets up off his bed, he heads over to the closet to pick his clothes out for the day. After deciding on a pair of gray skinny jeans, a black button up shirt, and a dark gray tie, he grabs a pair of black boxers and heads to the bathroom to shower. He lets the scalding water soak his stiff muscles. He hates not being able to sleep, but at this point he’s used to running on an hour or two of sleep. Levi goes through his normal shower routine of washing his hair and body twice before finally getting out once the water begins to cool. He steps out of the shower and quickly dries himself off and puts his clothes on. After making sure his hair was perfect, he puts in his piercings and puts a little bit of eyeliner on and calls it good. He makes his way into his and Hanji’s kitchen to make some tea and maybe eat something before they have to leave. He’s not surprised to see that Hanji isn’t up yet. While he can never sleep, she sleeps enough for the both of them. But sleep still does not prevent that woman from talking. As Levi passes her room, he can hear her having a conversation with herself in her sleep. He just smirks to himself and continues on his way into the kitchen. 

The smell of breakfast always gets Hanji up in the morning, so Levi knows he has to make enough for her as well, which ends up being enough for a small army. He thanks any god that Hanji is the one who buys food for them, since she eats the majority of it. Levi gets to work on making pancakes and eggs. He also brews a pot of coffee for Hanji, knowing she’ll bitch at him if he doesn’t and he doesn’t want to deal with that this morning. He gets out two plates for them and as if on cue, Hanji walks out of her room and into the kitchen as Levi is putting the plates on the table.

“Mmmm, shorty it smells good!” Hanji yawns in the middle of her sentence, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Tch, just eat shitty glasses.” Levi responds as he sits down with a cup of tea and begins to eat. “Just so you’re aware, we’re meeting with Jean and Eren in an hour, so make sure you’re ready to go.”

“Will do my shorty” Hanji exclaims.

45 minutes after eating breakfast and the two are ready to head to campus to meet up with Jean and Eren. They make it about 5 minutes early, which is how Levi likes it. Jean arrives only a few minutes after them.

“Alright, all we’re waiting for is Eren to show up and we can get started.” Hanji says to the other two. 

The trio wait for another 15 minutes waiting for Eren. Jean has called him a couple of times and sent him multiple texts. 

“Do you guys wanna tag along with me to wake him up? I’m sure, Hanji, that you can do a better job at it than I can. Come on, it’d be fun.” Jean says.

“LET’S DO IT!” Hanji squeals in response. 

So the three of them begin their walk to Eren’s place to wake him up.

_ Tch, shitty brat, not waking up. What a great way to start the first day of band practice,  _ Levi thought to himself.

As they walk up to Eren’s apartment door, they can already hear a muffled yell coming through the front door. Jean hesitantly rings the doorbell. After a few seconds of waiting, a ruffled blonde coconut opens the door with a terrified expression on his face.

“Jean? What..what are you doing here?” The coconut asks Jean.

“We came to wake Eren up, this is Hanji and Levi, we’re all in the same band. Guys this is Armin. Today is our first band practice and Eren is 45 minutes late.” Jean replies.

“I can’t get Eren to open the door. He’s never locked the door before. I heard him come in late last night. I thought it was weird it was so late, but I just figured something kept him at work. But I heard something fall on the floor in his bedroom and I could hear sobbing. Jean we need to get in that room.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”   
Jean enters the apartment, and when the blonde, Armin, motions for Levi and Hanji to enter, they follow suit. Armin leads the two towards where Jean is pounding on a closed door.

“Eren, let me in!” Jean is basically yelling at the door.

There is nothing but silence that follows.

“He’s a deep sleeper, but there is no way that he can sleep through this. I’m gonna try and break the door down.” Says Jean.

After a few failed attempts at trying to burst through the door, Jean steps back and looks desperate to get in there. He’s rubbing his shoulder where it hit the door repeatedly.

“Tch, you fail. I’ll give it a shot” Levi mumbles behind Jean.

Jean steps aside and watches as Levi approaches the door. With one single kick, the door is swinging open. The sight that was on the other side was one that they were not prepared for.

There was Eren, lying on the floor in a ball. His hair was plastered to his face with dried sweat and there was streaks in the dirt on his face from tears. The bruise on the side of his face was painfully noticeable. His clothes were ripped and dirty. But none of that was near as bad as the blood pooled around his arms that lay on the floor.

“Fuck! Hanji get the fuck in here, check for a pulse. Armin go get warm water, a towel, bandages, and something to clean his wounds with. Jean, just stay out of the way” Levi growls. He rushes over to Eren where Hanji is already bent over him checking for a pulse.

“He’s got a pulse, it’s not strong but it’s not weak either. He didn’t really do too much damage, I’d say he didn’t lose too much blood to where it was life threatening. What happened to this poor child to make him want to do this?” Hanji rattles off. 

Levi doesn’t respond, he just sits there staring at Eren. He knows what it’s like to want to die, but he never once pegged the shining eyed beauty as suicidal. Armin returns shortly after with all the items that Levi had told him to grab. Hanji quickly gets to work on patching the boy up. Levi didn’t know what to do, but he can’t just sit there. So he sits next to Eren’s head and places it in his lap. He starts wiping Eren’s forehead with one of the towels that Armin brought to clean off the sweat and tears to get a better look at the bruise on his face. It looks very much like a fist. While Levi is doing this, he begins to notice other bruises he didn’t notice at first. First are the finger like bruises that are wrapped around Eren’s throat. Those scare Levi in ways he didn’t know he could be scared. Same with the ones around his wrists. So someone punched Eren in the face, then bound his wrists and strangled him. That doesn’t sound like a normal assault.

“Hanji, I think Eren was raped. Look at his clothes and all the bruises on his body. I don’t see why if he was mugged he’d have bruises around his throat and wrists.” Levi whispers to his friend.

“Fuck, you might be right, but we have no proof. Can you get the others out of here? Tell them I’m going to get him changed and he probably would prefer it if no one else were here. I’ll check for any signs of sexual assault.” Hanji responds to Levi with a whisper.

“Oi, brats. Hanji here is training to be a nurse, we’ll leave Eren in her care alright? Let’s go get something to drink while we wait for Eren to wake up.” Levi says as he stands up, carefully placing Eren’s head on a pillow, before he turns around to follow the other two out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think! Love you all :)

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what you liked and what you think would be good. Also, if anyone has any suggestions on what to do with this story, it'd be greatly appreciated, since this is a write as I come up with ideas kind of story. I'm also not sure when I'll be able to update since school is pretty hectic right now.
> 
> The song used is Dr. Thunder by The Amity Affliction, check it out :)


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